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        <title>LRE Database Overview</title>
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        <h1 align="center">LRE Database Overview</h1>
		<p>The LRE Analyzer employs three types of databases :</p>
		<ul>
			<li><a href="experiment_database.html">Experiment DB</a>: for storage of sample profiles grouped into 
			their respective runs</li>
			<li><a href="calibration_database.html">Calibration DB</a>: for storage of calibration profiles used for
			<a href="../optical_calibration/optical_calibration_overview.html">
			optical calibration</a></li>
			<li><a href="amplicon_database.html">Amplicon DB:</a> for storage of amplicon information</li>
		</ul>
		<p>Each database type is maintained independently as files with a distinct file extension: 
		*.exp, *.cal and *.amp respectively. Thus, multiple database files can be created for each database 
		type. An Experiment database file, for example, holds a group of related 
		Runs&nbsp; (a concept taken from the RDML guideline for exchange of qPCR 
		data<sup><a href="#1.">1</a></sup>), so that data generated from different projects can be maintained within their own dedicated database file. 
		</p>
		<p>Database files can also be shared among multiple users, although note that a 
		database file can only be opened by one user at a time. This allows, for 
		example, construction of a master amplicon database for use by multiple 
		projects, in addition to shared calibration databases holding 
		calibration profiles generated by a specific reaction setup conducted on 
		a single instrument, but produced by different projects.</p>
<p align="center"><map name="FPMap0">
<b>
<area href="experiment_database.html" shape="rect" coords="1, 46, 124, 103">
<area href="calibration_database.html" shape="rect" coords="230, 46, 356, 103">
<area href="amplicon_database.html" shape="rect" coords="358, 44, 481, 103">
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The Three LRE Databases<br>
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<img border="0" src="images/image002.gif" width="482" height="104" usemap="#FPMap0"></p>&nbsp;<p>
		Both the Calibration and Amplicon databases provide supporting 
		functionality for the <a href="experiment_database.html">Experiment DB</a>, 
		by allowing the number of target molecules to be determined through the combination of 
		amplicon size and an optical calibration factor, as described in the
		<a href="../lre_overview/lre_introduction.html">LRE Overview</a> 
		section. </p>
		<p>
		The primary function of the <a href="amplicon_database.html">Amplicon DB</a> 
		is thus to provide amplicon sizes, accomplished automatically during run 
		import. As each individual profile is imported, the Amplicon DB 
		is asked to provide the size of the its amplicon. If the corresponding amplicon is missing, or if an amplicon 
		database is not open, the amplicon size is set to zero. Note also 
		that the amplicon size can be manually edited once a profile has been 
		imported.</p>
		<p>The primary function of the <a href="calibration_database.html">
		Calibration DB</a> is to generate an average optical calibration factor 
		(OCF) which correlates fluorescence units to DNA mass. This allows convertion 
		of&nbsp; target quantities expressed in 
		fluorescence units into the number of target molecules. Details of how 
		an average OCF is generated and how it is used for absolute 
		quantification is provided in the
		<a href="../optical_calibration/optical_calibration_overview.html">
		Optical Calibration</a> section. </p>
		<p>See also:<br>
		<a href="experiment_database.html">Experiment Database</a><br>
		<a href="calibration_database.html">Calibration Database</a><br>
		<a href="amplicon_database.html">Amplicon Database</a></p>
		<p><a name="1.">1.</a> Nucleic Acids Research 2009 37(7):2065-2069</p>
		<p></p>
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